Half a century ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's signature made it official: The 43-year-old, highfalutin National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was ready for rebirth. With $100 million and a couple of high-powered labs, NASA would be here to stay. As decreed by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, the agency was to "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space."

And has it ever. From chasing Sputnik to shooting for the moon and now dreaming about life on Mars, U.S. space exploration has pushed the boundaries of how out-of-this-world the world can go. To that end, we revisit PM's special report on the next 50 years in space with a look at the first 50. Converted from a database of launches by Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell with PM's original reporting, the interactive graphic below maps every liftoff from Sputnik to last year's TerraSAR-X satellite. So revisit history unfolding--the 30 years of Soviet and American dominance giving way to the increased presence of China and Europe--and take today to let your jaw drop a little bit lower.

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Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists celebrate Explorer I, the first American satellite to launch after Sputnik started the space race on Oct. 4, 1957. Although the sat launched in January 1958 and the National Aeronautics and Space Act was approved in July, NASA didn't open its doors until Oct. 1. (Photograph Courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Collection via NASA's new nasaimages.org)